The Nael Van Darnus story had references to VII's story. the whole Meteor storyline was a reference to VII. That's what they were going for. They wanted a send off to the initial version to be a nod to the series, but I'm failing to see where it totally ripped off of it.

Nael Van Darnus marched with his legionnaires in a similar method that Gabranth did in FFXII. Does that make it a rip-off of that game too?